His Kingdom Comes Through Prayer

I want to see God’s kingdom break through in my community. I’m not alone in this. I hope and wait and strive and serve and lead and hope some more. I see moments where God does beautifully amazing things (just last night we had seventeen students in our home for a student Bible study), but my thirst for more of God’s wonderful works in our community is not yet quenched.

You might have noticed a word missing from my list.

Pray.

It’s frustrating to notice in my own life a lack of prayer when it comes to wanting to see revival take off. I pray quite a bit in popcorn-style, brief, one sentence moments throughout my day. However it’s harder to get alone and get on my knees in order to ask and plead for the Lord to do a great work in my community.

God continues to lovingly call me into a deeper personal and private prayer life.

For the summer I’ve been taking my students on Sunday mornings through the “I Am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John. This has been a refreshing and encouraging season for me, as I study these, and I’ve come to notice a lot of what the Bible says about praying for His Kingdom to come on earth.

There are some pretty unbelievable promises in Scripture when it comes to the prayers of those who follow Christ. Consider this small sampling.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. – John 14:13-14

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. – John 15:7

Okay, let’s be real. If we were to truly take these promises to heart, we would never miss a day of prayerful pleading before the throne. These verses are astounding.

These verses are NOT saying that if I hit God up for a Ferrari and a million dollars in cash, it’ll be waiting for me when I get home today. That being said, unfortunately verses like these have been twisted to be about the prosperity of the believer. So you hear guys say that if we have enough faith, then God will give us whatever we ask. We will be healthy, rich, and wise. We won’t have any problems whatsoever, and if we do, we simply don’t have enough faith because these verses teach us that we can get whatever we want from God. This is a vile heresy that is founded on what to me is the greatest problem we face in our modern church, Biblical illiteracy. If we read our Bibles well and often, we would see how this prosperity gospel is so opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how the Bible refutes it in page after page (take for example the fact that the people of God, who had not abandoned God, were enslaved for 400 years by Egypt in the book of Exodus. I guess they just didn’t have enough faith).

Anyway, there’s a clear caveat on these promises of God. Jesus says that the Father will be glorified in the Son through the answering of our prayers which are said in the name of Jesus. For me to pray for a Ferrari and a million bucks is not really in the name of Jesus, nor would the answering of those selfish and audacious prayers bring glory to God.

So these verses teach us that God promises to answer those prayers of ours that ultimately glorify Him. He is sovereign, and He knows what is best for us. So sometimes He chooses to not answer our prayers the way we want or in the timetable we prefer. But if our prayers glorify Him, He will answer them. How beautiful is that.

With these verses fresh on my mind, I studied Acts chapter one last Friday with one of my best friends and fellow staff members here at the church. While I learned a whole lot through our conversation about the chapter, I found myself starkly reminded yet again of the necessity of prayer.

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers. – Acts 1:14

Jesus had ascended at this point, and all He had left His followers with was a promise that He would send His Spirit to them. While they waited on this ambiguous and confusing promise, they prayed together. They devoted themselves to prayer. In the following chapter, the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, showed up and revival was born. Prayer was the prerequisite for revival. Now I do not know what exactly they were praying for while they waited, but they prayed all the same.

We have a great number of people who carer about our community and want to see God do immeasurably more than all we could imagine. But when we make it about our strength, our work, our service, our desires, our dreams, our glory, then maybe we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot.

What if our community is poised for the gospel to flow into every home, and it is our prayerlessness that is hindering it, because we’re not making our desires about God’s glory?

Now, God can move however He wills and desires, but this question plaques me regularly.

What if we got on our knees. Not for God to bow to our desires but rather for us to beg God to bring His desires for Vernon to fruition.

Wherever you may be reading this blog, what f you got on your knees daily for your community as well?

I am prone to make audacious commitments, but I am going to strive to make it a point to pray a few times a week for God’s Kingdom to spread in my home. If we pray for gospel growth, truly believing that God is able to answer our prayers, then we may just see more miraculous things come about in the place where we call home.

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2 thoughts on “His Kingdom Comes Through Prayer”

I think it is beyond important for us to surround our immediate home and community in prayer for God’s will to be done. We get caught up in our world and its problems and sometimes try to reach too far when we really need to reach real close. And we can forget the power of being on our knees. I need this very much myself. Thanks for the reminder of community.